The Blog

Mar 9, 2009

The Twitter/Facebook/MySpace Meme-To-Mainstreamfest

I saw Rob Gonda post a comment to LinkedIn about this article called OMG! Shut Up About Twitter Already; I couldn't agree more. For 99% of you on Twitter, your life is just not that interesting for me to follow it ten seconds at a time.

I also personally consider it a jump-the-shark moment for a service (or anything else) when the mainstream media gets ahold of it and makes it the "hot new thing" several years after it surfaces in niche form. It happened to drum n' bass when it escaped from the clubs and started showing up in car commercials in the UK. It happened to Crocs when they suddenly appeared on the feet of every child in the United States. And it happened to Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook as soon as Fox News and CNN decided to get in on the action (followed by my step-mom signing up for accounts on all three in the last month or so :) ).

Sure, the extra publicity will be great for these services for a while, but as soon as they cross over from meme to mainstream, they lose their cachet. All the Cool Kids™ (I'm looking at you, Roop :) ) will want to join the next wonderful service that pops up, download the iPhone app, and be one of the Awesome Few® in the know. This usually means that it's only a matter of time for the other services to start losing their user base to the new service and become relegated to a merely sustainable has-been status.

Of course, I'm old now, so I don't really care to be at the forefront of the hottest new trends. I dodged Rails, didn't buy Crocs, and have avoided Facebook and Twitter. I regret to inform you that I did sign up for a MySpace account to catch up with old friends from the past, but I think about deleting it every day. If I get another useless animated GIF from somebody who hasn't sent me a meaningful communication in over five years, I think I'll kill myself.